Fall Festivities - Pumpkin Carving and Halloween

Another Fall season has arrived and with it Halloween and pumpkins, at least so far.  About a week ago I invited my nephew over to carve some pumpkins and Rebecca got pretty excited as well.  So, on a Saturday morning, after one of his hockey games, we picked up 2 pumpkins and some pizzas.  The pizzas were for lunch.  I was on scooping duty and got to help clean out the pumpkins.  Rebecca later baked the seeds for a tasty treat.  In addition to pumpkin carving we also had a bit of Halloween fun.

Although I am not a big fan of Halloween, we also found ourselves at 2 Halloween parties this year.  One happened by chance as we were out and about with my father.  While we didn't have costumes we did end up with wigs.  The second one was with some buddies and we ended up at Arooga's for a costume contest.  We didn't win, that's for sure, but I had a great time.  Also learned a new game that night...  Anyway, here are some of the photos.

(Pumpkin guts)

(More guts at the seeds that were later toasted)

(After they were all cleaned out it was time to start carving...)

(Here is my little buddy carving away)

(Rebecca took a much more artistic approach and hers took a bit longer to complete)

(The 2 carvers at work)

(Rebecca was pretty focused)

(Artsy shot for the day)

(My nephew had 2 or 3 faces on his pumpkin, I can't quite remember...)

(Rebecca still carving away)

(I will let you guess who carved which pumpkin)

(The cool thing was as you rotated my nephew's you saw a new face each time)

(My dad wanted to photo bomb)

(And we changed)

(Sitting around the campfire with Jimmy)

(Rebecca said it was a good look and I should grow my hair out)

(And we switched again)

(And again)

(And here is Rebecca in her Man U onesie)

(And this was colorful slash)

Shady Maple Smorgasbord

We made our way down to Shady Maple in East Earl (Amish Country) with Mimi and Pop Pop.  Rebecca had heard a lot about the smorgasbord - everyone in the family had an opinion or a story to tell.  There's a ton of food and a ton of good food.  And then some more food.

Rebecca is a vegetarian and here is the list of food she ate:

Mac and cheese
Potato pancakes
Apple fritter
Fried mushrooms
Broccoli w cheese
Cooked carrots
Peas
Gourmet raspberry bread
Corn
Dried corn
Fries
Baked yam w cinnamon and brown sugar
Baked haddock
Raspberry mousse with pineapple
Peach frozen yogurt w maraschino cherries and coconut
Baked apple

I ended up eating even more with all of the meat options.  Another reason we went down was because Pop Pop wanted to see a bit of Amish country before losing his eyesight.  So, we killed 2 birds with 1 stone, ate a lot of food and got to see a bit of Amish country.  The food was tasty, unfortunately we didn't get to see as much of Amish country as we would have liked.  Alas, here a just a few photos from the trip.  

(As you walk in there are 3-D art pieces.  It's difficult to tell here but...)

(Perhaps here you can get a sense of the dimensions)

(Hard to see to the other end but this entire hallway had 2 rows of food and each station had 10 to 12 items plus there are grills)

(The panoramic view messed up a few features but the building itself is huge)

(We had the server take a photo of us)

(Rebecca afterwards)

(We did it!!!)

(There is also a Shady Maple market/grocery store next door and here are just a few of the pies...)

(And Mimi checking out the pies)

(Rebecca hopped in a buggy)

(And for some reason there is a giant Amish guy as well...)

(My turn in the buggy)

(Rebecca going for the high five...)

(And then I was going for the high five...)